State reference

How does government work in Utah?

Utah’s legislature, governor, courts, local governments and election offices, with a source for every fact.

Facts checked November 5, 2026. Anything we could not verify from a source is left out rather than guessed. Rules change, so confirm deadlines with the official election office.

104

State legislators

Legislature

4 years

Governor’s term

Governor

Counties

Local

Seats in the US House

Clerk of the House

Foundation: Utah Constitution source
In effect since: 1895 source

What may surprise you here

Utah has no secretary of state. The constitution lists five elected executive officers, and none is a secretary of state. source
Utah’s governor and lieutenant governor appear together on the ballot, and a vote for one counts as a vote for the other. source
Judges are appointed from a nominating commission’s list, then face unopposed retention elections: the first after three years, then every tenth year for Supreme Court justices and every sixth year for other judges. source

Legislature

Name: Legislature of the State of Utah source
Senate: seats: 29 source
Senate: term in years: 4 source
House of Representatives: seats: 75 source
House of Representatives: term in years: 2 source
Term limits: None source

Structure set by: Utah Const. art. VI, § 1.

Governor and statewide offices

Term in years: 4 source
Term limit: None source
Next regular election: 2028 source
Lieutenant governor: joint ticket source
Attorney general: elected source
Attorney general’s term in years: 4 source
Secretary of state: no such office source

Courts

Highest court: Supreme Court source
Intermediate appeals court: Court of Appeals source
Main trial court: District Court source
How high-court judges reach the bench: merit selection with retention source

Local government

Called: county source
How many: 29 source
Cities and towns: Utah has 254 municipal governments and no township governments, according to the Census Bureau’s 2022 count. source
Schools: All 41 of the state’s school systems are independent school districts, according to the Census Bureau’s 2022 count. source

Elections

Chief election official: Lieutenant Governor source
Who runs elections locally: County clerks (for county elections), with municipal and other election officers for their own elections source
Primary type: partially closed source
Regular governor elections fall in: even source
Citizen initiatives: yes, for statutes only source

Who holds these offices

As of November 5, 2026. Terms of the current Congress run to January 3, 2027. Winners of the November 3, 2026 elections are not shown until results are certified and they take office.

Governor: Spencer Cox Republican, in office since January 4, 2021. source

US senators for Utah
Senator	Party	Seat	Senator since	Current term ends
John R. Curtis	Republican	Class 1	January 3, 2025	January 3, 2031
Mike Lee	Republican	Class 3	January 5, 2011	January 3, 2029

Members of the House for Utah
Seat	Member	Party	In the House since
District 1	Blake D. Moore	Republican	January 3, 2021
District 2	Celeste Maloy	Republican	November 21, 2023
District 3	Mike Kennedy	Republican	January 3, 2025
District 4	Burgess Owens	Republican	January 3, 2021

Boundaries for the 119th Congress, simplified from the Census Bureau cartographic boundary file. For an exact address, use the House lookup.

Who has held each Senate seat since 2001

Each band is one person in the seat. The line marks November 2026; anything to its right is the rest of a current term. Dates through 2026 come from the congress-legislators public dataset, whose current members are matched against the Senate’s own roster on every build.

Senate seat, Class 1